In order to avoid the accusation of censorship, I will note for everyone else's benefit that it suggested that Muslims are not welcome in Europe. I think that is a fair, if cleaner, representation of what you said.

This is not my viewpoint, nor it is the viewpoint of every reasonable person in this whole debate.

I note further that you commented anonymously. Not much standing up for the courage of your convictions there is there?

The whole sodding purpose of this debate is that normal sensible rational people allow everyone - and for the avoidance of doubt that definitely includes Muslims - to go about their business freely and without interference from the state or anyone else.

The whole sodding purpose of this debate is to show that when someone (like, for example, you) says something offensive AND UNTRUE, argument and reason is used to show that it is UNTRUE and you are left looking both wrong and offensive. There is no need to resort to violence.

People who don't get the irony of complaining about intolerance when the subject at hand is a matter of someone threatening to kill over the expression of an opinion in something as trivial as a newspaper cartoon.

I've been pondering myself over folks' freedoms and folks rights, and how they can have the capacity to stand on each other's toes.

For example, there's a wee tiny quassi-paradox in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Look:

Article 19.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Everyone, including all those who have no idea what they're talking about, has the right to voice their opinion, and to use the media to do so. From Socialists to Fascists; thickos to university professors; from Vegans United to Animal Haters Foundation. Right?

Well, not quite. There's a catch:

Article 30.

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Think about it...

(Oh, and I find it pathetic that some Muslims are behaving as though Denmark is one entity, and that all its residents are somehow collectively responsible for the publishing of the cartoons.)

Nope. In this instance there is no contradiction. The Danes are not trying to remove anyone's freedom to practise his or her faith.

Printing cartoons in a paper that you are not required to buy (note the difference with our dear beloved BBC - we don't have to listen to it but we ARE required to "buy" it) in no way whatsoever interferes with a vegan's right to be vegan, or a Muslim going to a Mosque or whatever.

That is the whole fucking point of Freedom of Speech. It is speech, not physical violence.

However, there are some people aiming at the destruction of some the rights and freedoms setforth herein: the fundamentalist Muslims who are trying to censor the press in Denmark.

It's just a thought I was having, or have been having, recently. The Declaration of Human Rights is up in the library of my college and I was thinking mainly of the BNP (who kept going on about "free speech") whilst reading and pondering over them.

In the declaration, there is the "free speech" that that, "party" always quote... then most of the rest of the rights therein go against what the average BNP supporter's view on life. Then one read's Article 30 of said Declaration...

... And one wonders.

(It sprung to mind because you'd said something to an anonymous poster.)

England I most certainly will not. Two reasons:1) We haven't had a referendum.2) If we had, IT WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ENGLAND. It would have been the UK. I refer you to this for your homework this evening.

;-)

Being so flat that your highest point is only 400 feet above sea level! FUCK YEAH